Antoine Gadan
French, 1854-1934
“Cows by a Stream”
Oil on panel; 6 ¾ x 10 ¼ inches
Signed lower left
Antoine Gadan was born in Seurre in Côte d’Or in eastern France and taught himself how to paint at a young age. The Gadan family decided to leave for Algeria to seek a better life and the young painter, then aged twenty-seven, departed from Marseille by ship with his parents, wife and brother.
Gadan frequently travelled around the area of Bône, then considered a French province. There he found inspiration in the luminosity of the Algerian desert. Gadan’s works overflow with light and brilliance and remind the viewer of the beauty of North African nature and Algerian Berber culture. The artist’s paintings were presented in Paris in 1895 at the Salon of French Artists and in 1908 a solo exhibition was dedicated to him at the Constantine Museum in Constantine in Algeria.